The Big O

by Oscar P Robertson

  Maybe I am coming from a different mindset. The current NBA is a multi-billion-dollar business. Teams travel in their own private planes, with luxury seats and individual DVD players set up for each team member. When I played, the job wasn’t a routine one. But there was a routine to it, especially traveling. You grew accustomed to it.

  On a typical trip, I’d lose all concept of what day it was. Say the team started off with a road game in Milwaukee. The plane left early in the morning on the day of the game, maybe 9:00 A.M. We’d check in to a hotel, then play the game, then head back to the hotel at around 11:00 P.M. The next morning, we’d take a bus and ride for hours, arriving directly at a Chicago hotel. The team checked in and rested before going to play the game and then headed back to a hotel. Afterwards, I’d hit a music club before the team’s midnight curfew. The next morning, we have to get up early again, because we’re flying to Portland, where we’ll have a day off. Not a full day off, because we’d still work out that afternoon, shoot some, and talk about Portland’s defense. That night I might grab a paper and go check out a band or one of the entertainers I’d met over the years, like Dizzy Gillespie, Sam Cooke, James Brown, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson. I’d go to see them perform, and maybe head backstage afterwards to say hello. And then back to the hotel before curfew.

  Most nights in the hotel room, I’d flip the television on and watch until I fell asleep. Wayne used to wonder how I could watch so much crap on TV. I used to ask him how he could sleep as much as he did. Then Bob Boozer might come by for some soul talk.

  The next night, we’d play in Portland. After just a few trips up and down the floor, I knew who’d been out past curfew or whatever. I know whenever I let myself get hooked by a late-night movie on television, I sure felt it the next day.

  You learned to adjust to life on the road, because your nights and days were turned upside down. Maybe breakfast would be at 1:00 P.M. Dinner might be after the game, as late as 11:00 or midnight. It took me years, but I finally learned to sleep on a plane. You simply had to get some sleep whenever you had a chance. I also learned about the art of packing light. I could get ready to go to Los Angeles for a week right now in fifteen minutes.

  Our next game would be in Los Angeles, but since we’d arrive in that city at noon, there’d be no shoot-around. Maybe we’d have a team meeting. We’d play the game. Whenever we stayed in Los Angeles for a whole night, one of my old high school teammates, Norm Crowe, was happy to take me in and give me a home-cooked meal. After a while, I knew people in every city we played. Most of them were friends from my years at Crispus Attucks. I was always reluctant to bother them though—I never wanted to be an imposition, for one thing. For another, I had my own travel routines and did not want to break them. And most of the time, we went back to the airport right after our game. From Los Angeles, we then flew to Houston for our next game. The flight would take off at 12:30 A.M. and be in the air through the night. With time changes and everything, we’d arrive at about 6:00 A.M., go to the hotel, and get a little rest. Then it was time to hit the arena, loosen up, and play the Rockets. It wasn’t uncommon, in the middle of a long road trip, to forget exactly who you were playing, what city you were in. Suddenly, your mind would go blank and you’d have to think, “What day is it?”

  Every city was its own adventure. The courts weren’t like today’s lacquered, standardized basketball courts. There were screws sticking up out of the old Cow Palace floor in San Francisco. Boston Garden’s parquet was noted for, among other things, its dead spots. Celtics players used to lead you to them, and when you dribbled on a dead piece of wood, they’d be waiting; the ball would bounce low, or spring off to the side, and a Celtic would pounce. After a while you knew each court’s idiosyncrasies and adjusted, much in the same way that pitchers track hitter’s ballparks and the nooks and crannies of different fields.

  Finally the game against Houston would end, and it would be time to head back to the airport, back to Cincinnati, flying all night, touching down at the break of dawn.

  A grand total of five games in less than seven days, while also flying across the country and back: a typical road trip.

  “Everything happens while he’s away,” Yvonne used to say. If the furnace broke down, I wasn’t there. If the dryer detonated, I wasn’t there. The year’s most paralyzing snowstorm was bound to happen when I was out of town.

  Our three healthy daughters were born in 1960, 1964, and 1969. I was playing in the all-star game in Boston when our second child, Tia, was born. Yvonne did an excellent job raising our kids. For a significant portion of the year, she did it alone. I wasn’t there. If they needed disciplining, it was up to her. There wasn’t much point in trying to catch me up and fill me in on things. Yvonne faithfully went to every home game, leaving the kids with a sitter. Our afternoons at home were casual. I couldn’t do much during the season. I had to conserve my energy for the games. As often as not, on the day of a game, I’d have a noon meal or just sit back in my den, watch TV, and let the girls climb all over me.

  I’m not complaining, mind you. Basketball provided my family with financial security. It allowed Yvonne and me to raise our daughters safely. The game gave me a lot of opportunities, knowledge I would never have gotten otherwise. I got to meet Princess Grace and different kings and queens. I’ve been all over the world. If it weren’t for basketball, I would still be in Indianapolis doing menial tasks. Maybe I would have gone to a small college and gotten through. I’ll never be ungrateful or unappreciative for what I achieved through basketball. Having said this, there was a price. The game exacted its toll in all sorts of ways.

  More than earning money, meeting princesses, or visiting exotic locales, my reward was a simple fact: I played against the best generation of players, ever. It’s true that a good chunk of my career was spent on teams that had no chance to win a title. It’s true the road schedule was a physical and mental grind. But every night that I went out onto the court, I was out there playing with and against some of the best players who ever lived. There’s nothing a competitor wants more than a challenge, to match himself against someone who’s every bit as skilled and talented as he is. That’s what kept me going every night.

  We ushered in the modern era of basketball. You wouldn’t have the game of basketball as we know it without us. We were cornerstones in building the game and the way it is played today. Today’s player, whether he knows it or not, wouldn’t be where he is without us.

  We had Bill Russell and Wilt, the two dominant players in the history of the game. Jerry West was the best clutch player I ever saw, the best shooter, and one of the best competitors. His biggest talent, perhaps, was emerging at the right moment to take advantage of a well-timed pick or pass. Jerry hated to lose so much that you could see it transform him. Jerry and I were friends, but our rivalry was intense.

  People always ask who was better: Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, or Michael Jordan? But they forget that those three never played against one another in matchups. Wilt Chamberlain played against Bill Russell. I guarded Jerry West. Our rivalry was especially entertaining, both to watch and to be a part of, because I played with such efficient and calculated focus, while Jerry was a great shooter. Bob Ryan, the renowned basketball writer for The Boston Globe has said that I developed more different skills than any other basketball player he ever saw, whereas Jerry may have had more desire.

  America looked at Jerry fondly. Playing in L.A. with Wilt and Elgin on his team meant playing with a great cast. Nowadays, I regard Jerry as a basketball genius for what he did as the general manager of the Lakers. And the genius definitely has his work cut out for him in building the Memphis Grizzlies into a contending club.

  It also must be said that Elgin Baylor took a backseat to no one. You could not stop Elgin from driving to the basket. Animal, vegetable, or glowing green radioactive minerals couldn’t stop him. You sure couldn’t outjump him, or hang in the air any longer than he did. Elgin was the first player in league histo
ry to score seventy points in a game. Elgin was the first and original high flier—the first man to show tremendous hang time and aerial dexterity. He was just unstoppable.

  There were other great players as well. Bob Pettit was about the hardest-working rebounder the game’s ever seen. Nate Thurmond was a gentle man off the court, but he intimidated everybody in the league. You didn’t go into the paint when Nate was in there. There were all those great Celtics teams that I couldn’t get past—Cousy and Heinsohn and Sam and K. C. Jones. There were guys like Chet Walker, Hal Greer, Rick Barry, and high-flying and always hustling Billy Cunningham. If you looked at Jerry Sloan today on the sidelines, coaching the Utah Jazz, you’d have no idea just what a tough, physical defender he was. We used to have wars; I brought the ball up, and he did all he could to keep me from scoring. How about Willis Reed? Everyone knows about his inspirational performance in the 1970 finals, when he gave those twenty-seven meaningful minutes on one leg to lead the Knicks to the championship. But how many people remember his feathery, left-handed jump shot, the commanding presence he was when healthy, or that he was the first player to be named the MVP of the all-star game, the regular season, and the playoffs in the 1970 season?

  If the first half of the 1960s was spent bringing professional basketball to public legitimacy, the second half of the decade saw a broadening of the game. In part this was a natural extension of the rise and acceptance of the black professional athlete. In part it had to do with the widespread popularity of and technical advances in sports broadcasting and the natural ease with which basketball can be followed and appreciated on television. Consider the decade itself—a time of upheaval: nonviolence movements, campus radicalism, peace marches, the Twenty-fourth Amendment (“The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax . . .”), and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. A decade of political assassinations and the rock revolution, of Vietnam, the women’s liberation movement, youth culture, and drugs and experimentation in every shape and form. On any given day, you could turn on the news, read the paper, or just walk down a city street and get the sense that society itself was unraveling. I think this was reflected in the game of basketball too. Players like Bill Russell, Jerry, Elgin and the rest emerged at a time when talents and abilities were directed toward winning as much as they were to personal accomplishment. When society started moving in a different direction, and the health of the game was not necessarily at stake, creativity became a more distinct part of the game. I’m not saying, mind you, that guys didn’t show flair when I was growing up. My brother Bailey was colorful; there were tons of guys at the Dust Bowl with playground moves to spare, and if you ever watched Marques Haynes dribble, you would know that there’s nothing being done now that wasn’t done fifty years ago. But those moves were for the playground.

  As the 1960s progressed, this changed. The game and its players evolved. The ABA’s reputation as an outlaw, playground league had its role in opening up the game. But be it ABA or NBA, now there was a new breed. Earl Monroe, Connie Hawkins, Walt Frazier, and Pete Maravich were guys who played with a distinct flair and personal style.

  Earl led the way in many ways. Known alternately as “Black Jesus,” “the Pearl,” “Magic,” and “Black Magic,” Earl was a tremendous athlete and stunningly creative with the basketball. Bill Bradley once described him as “the ultimate playground player.” It was a challenge to play against him. You never knew what he was going to do, and you had to be on your toes because you didn’t want him to embarrass you. When you played against the Pearl, it brought out everything in you, and personal challenges like that were why you played the game.

  Connie Hawkins was pure electricity. At six eight or six nine, he had these long arms and the largest hands you ever saw. He could palm the ball and wave it in front of you, doing all kinds of loops. The Hawk was one of the best leapers anybody ever saw, really a prelude to Dr. J. and Michael Jordan. There was nothing either of them could do in the air that Connie couldn’t. By all accounts he’s the best playground player to ever come out of New York City and could have had a chance to be one of the all-time great players in basketball. He was thrown out of college and banned from the NBA for years for having a friendship with a known gambler, Jack Molinas. He lost the formative and prime years of his career to that scandal; I’ve always thought was wrong. Instead, he spent time with the Globetrotters, then in the ABA, where he was their first MVP. When he finally made it to the NBA in 1969, knee problems had slowed him up some, but he was still a force. He’d hang in the air and palm the ball and move it in these swooping loops that people loved. It was the Globetrotter in him.

  On the floor, Walt “Clyde” Frazier was one cool basketball player and a great floor leader. Nothing flashy, mind you; he just played within himself and ran the Knicks. The Knicks had a loaded team in the late 1960s and early 1970s, featuring one great basketball player after another. He cemented their whole team with his easy, loping grace and his icy ability to read the court and run the show. Willis Reed, a Hall of Fame player, said, “It’s Clyde’s ball. He just lets us play with it once in a while.” He’s publicly said that he looked to me as a floor leader and tried to copy me. Off the court, Clyde was the embodiment of a different type of cool: broad-brimmed velour hats, wide-labeled crushed-velvet jackets, and a celebrated reputation for Rolls Royce sedans and nightclub prowling.

  I couldn’t possibly list that era’s breakthrough and flashy players without including Pistol Pete Maravich. Pete came along at the tail end of the decade; in 1970, he broke my all-time collegiate scoring record when he played for his father, Press, at LSU. At LSU, his dad designed an entire offense that revolved around one player. Everyone else on the team fought just to get a shot here and there. That’s not good basketball, and it shows in LSU’s records while Maravich was there. They never made it to the final four. Didn’t come close. When he came out of college, the Atlanta Hawks paid him more money than the rest of the team combined. That, in addition to his flashy style of play, created some problems for him with his teammates.

  Pete had a great shot, and he could score. But he had defensive troubles. He could make a flashy pass, but he wouldn’t always make the right pass. I remember once when Pete was on a fast break. He bowled the ball the length of the court to an open teammate. The man stood there and watched the ball roll out-of-bounds. Then he walked up court staring at Pete. I can understand why the guy did that. When you bust your ass to get open, a guy’s got to throw you a pass that allows you to score. Otherwise why work so hard?

  In some ways his style and story represents a cautionary one, especially given the tone and tenor of today’s game. If you are going to work on dribbling and shooting and being flashy, you better be able to play all facets of the game. Too many young guys think that highlights are the game, or that the Nintendo version of basketball is actually the real thing. If you honestly believe you are going to shoot sixty shots a game, well, for your sake and your team’s, you better be a complete player. You better be able to rebound. You better play some defense. Learn to pass the ball. Learn to get someone else in the game. The only way to win any games that matter is to make the rest of the players better. Pete never won a championship, not at any level. He was a reserve player on Larry Bird’s first Celtics championship team, and it’s really too bad that his knees gave out and he had to retire during that season. I didn’t know him, but I always heard this haunted him somewhat. Pete had a hard life as an adult. He died playing pickup basketball a few years back.

  Television doesn’t show highlights from my era much anymore. The history of the game is for some other time, some other channel. When ESPN Classics does show a game from the 1960s or 1970s, the camera shots may not be as clear as they are now, but that doesn’t
mean the game is any better today. Conventional thinking among basketball fans is that basketball has become faster. Not true. The guys I played with could compete with today’s players.

  Players like Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, and maybe Dirk Nowitzki—six-foot-eleven and seven-footers with coordination and agility and the skills to play all five positions—probably represent the next step in the evolution of the game. I will concede that today’s modern athletes certainly have the better diet. They also do a lot of weight training—although I don’t know if you need to be able to lift five hundred pounds to play basketball. But find today’s newspaper and check the box scores. Maybe the Dallas Mavericks average a hundred points a game. The scoring was much higher in my era than it is today. And that’s without the three-point rule.

  I played against some of the greatest defenders in the history of the game—Russell, Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond, Walt Bellamy—but still the scoring was a lot higher than it is today. Some so-called experts will tell you it’s because of the coaches and athletes. I’ve seen basketball analysts say that principles of help defense are more advanced now and take advantage of all the athleticism. I say that’s bull. If Jerry West was on his game, you couldn’t stop him. I don’t care what defense you were in.

  Every modern coach has ties to the history of the game and uses strategies and defenses that are decades old. Everyone knows that Tex Winter is the guru of Phil Jackson’s Triangle Offense, which Michael Jordan and Shaq swear by so faithfully. Well, Tex was Bob Boozer’s head coach at Kansas State. Pat Riley learned about defense and winning hard from Knicks coach Red Holzman. And Tex and Red weren’t doing anything new, either. They were coaching based on principles that had been around for years and years.

  And if the athletes are so much better right now than ever before, shouldn’t they be better on both ends of the court?